Gaza ceasefire talks resumed in Doha on Thursday as pressure mounted for a deal to halt the spread of a war that the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry said has killed 40,000. A source with knowledge of the talks told AFP they had begun in the Qatari capital. They did not disclose whether Hamas had sent any delegates to the meeting, which Israel and CIA director William Burns planned to attend. Ahead of the negotiations, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told CNN the focus would be on implementing details of a proposal that President Joe Biden laid out on May 31. “That’s when it gets the hardest and the most gritty,” Kirby said, adding “hopefully we’ll make some progress here in the coming hours and days.” So far, there has been only one, week-long truce in November, when Hamas released 105 hostages seized in the October 7 attack in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. A Hamas official said the Islamist movement would demand the implementation of the plan that Biden said would start with an initial six-week “complete ceasefire”, the release of hostages and a “surge” in humanitarian aid as the warring sides negotiate “a permanent end to hostilities”. The latest diplomatic push comes as the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said the death toll in the besieged Palestinian territory had surpassed 40,000 — which UN human rights chief Volker Turk called a “grim milestone”. “Most of the dead are women and children. This unimaginable situation is overwhelmingly due to recurring failures by the Israeli Defense Forces to comply with the rules of war,” he added.